With limited space and exorbitant rental costs, retail banks in Hong Kong have been rethinking the role of the branch. But rather than moving away from bricks to clicks, Hong Kong’s banks are investing in and revamping their branches.

Taiwan's rising prominence as an offshore renminbi centre reached a milestone earlier this year when the Bank of China opened a clearing bank in Taipei. But with Hong Kong, and to a lesser extent London and Singapore, already working as offshore renminbi hubs, where will Taiwan fit in?

Near-field-communication technology for mobile payments has seen huge investment and been much feted, but is yet to take off in the mainstream. What will it take for consumers to take to this new way of paying for their purchases?

As consumer spending increasingly moves to online, so too do payments, with digital wallets becoming embedded in the payments culture with the aim of making online transactions both convenient and secure.

Three Singaporean lenders occupy the top three spots in The Banker's Association of South-east Asian Nations banks ranking by Tier 1 capital for the year ending 2011, and the same three institutions also led the way in terms of pre-tax profits.